


Different Journeys

by trascendenza



Category: Time Traveler's Wife - Niffenegger
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-29
Updated: 2007-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry has a chance encounter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Journeys

**Author's Note:**

> Written for smallfandomfest, prompt: growing up.

September 4, 1990 (Henry is 27)

Henry: I hate this club. It's a stupid fucking place full of stupid fucking people. I don't know why Ingrid continues forcing me to come here, maybe because she likes stupid people. She'd probably tell me I'm the stupid one for listening to her; she has that way of twisting things around.

I'm starting to think she takes a perverse pleasure in my displeasure; certainly we haven't given each other much of the former in quite some time. This is ridiculous: she knows it, I know it. I'm sure even the bartender who gave me the drink knows it. But here I am, holding her exotically named concoction, waiting. I cringe at the awful screams from the guitar that is being abused on stage. The man is making a valiant attempt at pretending he's playing the instrument, but even his horrific make-up can't disguise his obvious confusion over what his fingers should be doing.

The air is thick with cigarettes and the odor of sweaty bodies. The floor barely lets free the soles of my shoes, and I am about ready to leave, drink and all. I see Ingrid convulsing her way over to me, her whipcord thin frame cutting a jerky path through the crowd. I can't remember what I saw in her in the first place.

This can't be a good sign.

"What the fuck is this?" She hisses, backing away from the glass as if it's full of holy water and she's, well, exactly what she is: a vampire. I try not to smile because she'll certainly take it the wrong way.

I hold it out in a peacemaking gesture. "This is what you wanted—"

Her glare is ice clarified by rage. "This is _not_ what I asked for."

Somehow, I get her to take the drink, but by the time I have, I've lost what little appetite I had for dancing. I retreat to the edges of the room, making my way through the revelers, determined: I need somewhere to sit down, to get out of this madness. The crowd thins around the entrances, where the bouncers shoot menacing looks at anyone who reaches too deep into their coat pockets. One of the many reasons I don't like this place.

I ascend up to the second level and consign myself onto the cold, metallic floor. My legs dangle over the railing. The strobe lights only make the whole scene more garish and renew my determination to wait Ingrid out. I'd like to think that if I hold firm, I won't be the one apologizing this time.

One song progresses into another with jagged, discordant noises; the players on stage shift but the quality does not. I watch with only the slightest curiosity, occasionally tracking Ingrid's very-nearly white hair through the undulating mass.

Deep in thought about the best way to convince Ingrid that she's ready to leave without actually telling her that I want to leave, I don't immediately notice the figure that comes to stand at the railing, blocking the flickers of pink, blue, and yellow lights from flashing into my eyes. After a few minutes, the figure shifts, and I see a wave of black hair that falls in a thick halo against the club's bursts of luminescence.

I can't see more than the thin outline of a face, but I sense she is looking at me: not in the measuring way that Ingrid does, but a gentle inquisition. There is recognition in the way she sits besides me. Stretching out her long legs to dangle next to mine, she props one elbow on the guard rail and looks at me.

"Hello," she says.

I stare at her for longer than is polite, straining at stray déjà vu: have we met before? I could swear that we have, though when is anyone's guess. I know it's a stupid question to ask and never do, because I'm sure by the tenth time, people get tired of answering. Yet the fall of her hair, the container of oval that holds her features is inescapably familiar to me.

So I take the roundabout route. "Have you been here before?"

She smiles. She can't be that much younger than me, judging by her motley assortment of clothing—cut-off jeans that look like they've come from a dumpster and a jacket that's worn to patches, certainly not warm enough for a night like this. But the way she smiles is older than trees in a forest. I can't help thinking that she knows something I don't: a very rare feeling for me. I'm usually the one who carries around the weight of too much knowledge.

There's a word circling in my mind that wants to be pinned to her.

"When I was young," she tells me, and her eyes do not deviate from my face even a bit: I am forced to re-evaluate my age assessment. In all the instances where I've encountered my future self, he—I—have the same clarity of gaze, that same inborn serenity that comes with age.

"What did it used to be?" I assume that this monstrosity hasn't been marring the face of this block since her childhood.

She tucks her hair behind her ear. Re-adjusting, she pulls her legs up under her and sits cross-legged, facing me. With anyone else, I would find this behavior amiss, this openness that is so strange to find in a city, and perhaps she is strange: strange in a way I like.

"I would meet my father here, sometimes." Her eyes become a little distant, remembering. "He was a wild youth."

My voice comes out sharp. "He let you come to this part of town by yourself?" I barely keep from using a few choice words to describe that kind of parenting.

Her eyes skid away, briefly. Her hands are open in her lap, and melancholy rolls off her in waves, so strong that I immediately want to tell her I'm sorry, but the part of my mind that's still murmuring déjà vu tells me the opposite: _an apology is the last thing she wants to hear from you._

"He had no choice." Her hands unfurl further, as if beseeching me to understand. "He was—is—a good father." Her palms nearly tremble. "I love—I loved—I'll always love him."

The tenses roll through my mind, breakers over a beach, echoes in an empty room. _I love, I loved, I will love. I am, I was, I will be._

"Were you looking for him?"

Her eyes falter.

"I'm always looking for him."

I push down the urge to apologize again, and wonder why I feel so strongly like I've been displaced in time. Or maybe not displaced: like time, for once, has come to me.

"I'm Henry," I offer, sticking my hand out. I realize we are doing this all backward, but her delicate hand in mine, the way she doesn't question the introduction tells me she's as comfortable outside of linear normalcy as I am.

"Telemacha." The corner of her mouth quirks in a private joke.

"Telemacha." And then, I think I understand: always looking. And waiting. "Well, I hope his ship returns soon."

I hate seeing her eyes well up with tears, and put my other hand over her wrist. "Your father is very lucky," I tell her quickly, though I know it doesn't make anything better. I'm a little reluctant to release her, and she seems to be reluctant to release me, as if we can physically grapple out all the words we can't find.

But she does let go of my hand, and stands up. She's a silhouette again, a form of shadow, light, and the borders between the two.

"Thank you." The tears are no longer visible except in her voice.

Watching her run out of the club, the word finally coalesces on the tip of my tongue, a revelation seconds too late.

Kinship.


End file.
